Q Grand Chute just invested in big, fancy traffic lights at Lynndale Drive and Grand Chute Boulevard. The busiest traffic time is Sunday for Appleton Alliance Church, and I saw we're still paying for an officer to operate the lights, just as we did to direct traffic before the lights went in. Why is that necessary if we just put up lights?

A Grand Chute and Outagamie County split the $180,000 cost of the traffic lights at the intersection. The lights were installed at the end of July with the hope they would alleviate the need for officers to direct traffic on Sunday mornings.

Grand Chute Police Chief Greg Peterson said the lights have improved traffic flow at the intersection, but they still are unable to handle the heavy volume of traffic generated before and after the church services. As a result, the church requested the town provide a community service officer to manually operate the lights on Sunday mornings.

Peterson said the church reimburses the town for the cost of the community service officer. The church had been reimbursing the town for the two community service officers who were needed to direct traffic before the lights were installed.

"The town doesn't bear any cost there," he said. "The church is paying for the service to manually operate the lights during this very busy time."

Al Geurts, Outagamie County highway commissioner, said the county highway engineer was surprised to learn that the town was providing a community service officer to manually operate the lights on Sundays.

He said the engineer would work with town police to tweak the cycle of lights to function properly on Sundays.

"The lights certainly can be programmed to give some precedence to the outgoing and incoming traffic," Geurts said. "It was the intent from the beginning to accommodate traffic safely without having officers onsite."